This novel was a bit of a mixed bag. Furst is brilliant at evoking late 1930s Warsaw, and Europe more generally. He deftly crafts small scenes between characters that are tiny illuminations into these individuals and to the subtleties that made up the spy game in the late 1930s. But in terms of an overarching plot, the novel didn't always hold together. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing as Mercier was an interesting character to follow but on occasions I wasn't quite sure where the novel was going. And then I found myself anxious towards the end of the novel because the resolution of one of the larger conflicts had not felt like a real resolution, leaving me to await the other shoe which never arrived. Not bad if you enjoy pre-war spy novels, but there are more satisfying spy novels out there.